1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optoelectronic cable assembly, and more particularly to an optoelectronic cable assembly incorporating with a mating element slidably disposed therein.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, personal computers (PC) uses of a variety of techniques for providing input and output. Universal Serial Bus (USB) is a serial bus standard to the PC architecture with a focus on computer telephony interface, consumer and productivity applications. The design of USB is standardized by the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), which is an industry standard body incorporating leading companies from the computer and electronic industries. In USB interface has been widely applied to interconnect peripherals such as mouse devices, keyboards, PDAs, gamepads and joysticks, scanners, digital cameras, printers, external storage, networking components, etc. For many devices such as scanners and digital cameras, USB has become the interconnection interface.
USB supports three data rates: 1) A Low Speed rate of up to 1.5 Mbit/s (187.5 KB/s) that is mostly used for Human Interface Devices (HID) such as keyboards, mice, and joysticks; 2) A Full Speed rate of up to 12 Mbit/s (1.5 MB/s). Full Speed was the fastest rate before the USB 2.0 specification and many devices fall back to Full Speed. Full Speed devices divide the USB bandwidth between them in a first-come first-served basis and it is not uncommon to run out of bandwidth with several isochronous devices. All USB Hubs support Full Speed; 3) A Hi-Speed rate of up to 480 Mbit/s (60 MB/s). Though Hi-Speed devices are advertised as “up to 480 Mbit/s”, not all USB 2.0 devices are Hi-Speed. Hi-Speed devices typically only operate at half of the full theoretical (60 MB/s) data throughput rate. Most Hi-Speed USB devices typically operate at much slower speeds, often about 3 MB/s overall, sometimes up to 10-20 MB/s. A data transmission rate at 20 MB/s is sufficient for some but not all applications. However, under a circumstance transmitting an audio or video file, which is always up to hundreds MB, even to 1 or 2 GB, currently transmission rate of USB is not sufficient. As a consequence, faster serial-bus interfaces are being introduced to address different requirements. PCI Express, at 2.5 GB/s, and SATA, at 1.5 GB/s and 3.0 GB/s, are two examples of High-Speed serial bus interfaces.
From an electrical standpoint, the higher data transmission rates of the non-USB protocols discussed above are highly desirable for certain applications. However, these non-USB protocols are not used as broadly as USB protocols. Many portable devices are equipped with USB interfaces other than these non-USB interfaces. One of the important reason is that these non-USB connectors contain a greater number of signal pins than an existing USB interface and are physically larger as well. For example, while the PCI Express is useful for its higher possible transmission rates, the 26-pin connector renders a wider card-like form factor limit the use of Express Cards. For another example, SATA uses two connectors, one 7-pin connector for signals and another 15-pin connector for power. In essence, SATA is more useful for internal storage expansion than for external peripherals.
The existing USB connectors have a small dimension but lower transmission rate, while other non-USB connectors (PCI Express, SATA, et al) have a high transmission rate but large bulky. Neither of them can be desirably and properly implemented into modern high-speed, miniaturized electronic devices and peripherals. To provide a connector with a small bulky and a high transmission rate for portability and high data transmitting efficiency is much more desirable.
In recent years, more and more electronic devices are adopted for optical data transmission. It may be a good idea to design a connector which is capable of transmitting both an electrical signal and an optical signal. Design concepts are already common for such a optoelectronic connector which is compatible of electrical and optical signal transmission. The connector includes metallic contacts assembled to an insulated housing and several optical lenses bundled together and mounted to the housing also. A hybrid cable configured with wires and optical fibers that are respectively attached to the metallic contacts and the optical lenses.
However, optical lenses are unable to be movably with regard to the housing. They are not accurately aligned with, and optically coupled to counterparts, if there are some errors in manufacturing process.